YouTube Transcript & Subtitle Scraper - Fast & Reliable ⚡

Extract YouTube video transcripts instantly! Get complete subtitles with precise timestamps in 100+ languages. Perfect for content creators, researchers, and data analysts.

🚀 Why Choose This Actor?

• ⚡ Lightning Fast - Get transcripts in seconds, not minutes
• 🌍 100+ Languages - Support for all YouTube subtitle languages
• 🎯 No API Key Required - Start scraping immediately
• 🔄 Built-in Proxy Rotation - Unlimited scraping without blocks
• 📊 Rich Data Export - JSON format with full metadata
• 💰 Cost-Effective - Only 128 MB memory required
• 🛡️ Abort-Safe - Never lose your data mid-scraping
• 🎨 All URL Formats - Works with any YouTube link

💡 Perfect For

• 📝 Content Creators - Repurpose video content into blog posts, articles, or social media
• 🔬 Researchers - Analyze video content at scale for academic studies
• 📊 Data Analysts - Extract insights from YouTube video transcripts
• 🎓 Educators - Create study materials from educational videos
• 🌐 Translators - Get source text for translation projects
• 🤖 AI/ML Engineers - Build training datasets from video content
• 📱 App Developers - Integrate transcript data into your applications

✨ Features

• Multiple URL Formats: Supports all YouTube URL formats (full URLs, short URLs, mobile URLs, embed URLs, or just video IDs)
• Language Support: Request transcripts in specific languages with automatic fallback
• Auto-Generated Transcripts: Option to include auto-generated captions when manual transcripts aren't available
• Timestamp Data: Complete transcript with start time and duration for each segment
• Continuous Saving: Results are saved immediately to prevent data loss on abort
• Proxy Support: Uses Apify residential proxies for reliable access
• Comprehensive Error Handling: Clear error messages for various failure scenarios

Input

The actor accepts the following input parameters:

videoInput (required)

Array of YouTube video URLs or IDs. Supports:

• Full URLs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• Short URLs: https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• Mobile URLs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• Embed URLs: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• Video ID only: VIDEO_ID

Example - Multiple videos in different formats:

{
  "videoInput": [
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "https://youtu.be/jNQXAC9IVRw",
    "M7lc1UVf-VE",
    "https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0",
    "https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Vv-BfVoq4g"
  ]
}

languages (optional)

Language code for the transcript (e.g., "en", "es", "de", "uk").

• Leave empty to get any available language
• Default: "en"

preserveFormatting (optional)

Whether to preserve formatting in the transcript text.

• Default: false

includeGeneratedTranscripts (optional)

Whether to include auto-generated transcripts if manual ones are not available.

• Default: true

Output

The actor outputs a dataset with the following structure:

{
  "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "videoUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "requestedLanguage": "en",
  "actualLanguage": "en",
  "isGenerated": false,
  "transcript": [
    {
      "text": "Never gonna give you up",
      "start": 0.0,
      "duration": 2.5
    },
    ...
  ],
  "textOnly": "Never gonna give you up\nNever gonna let you down\n...",
  "availableLanguages": [
    {
      "language": "English",
      "language_code": "en",
      "is_generated": false,
      "is_translatable": true
    }
  ],
  "languageNote": "Optional note if returned language differs from requested"
}

Output Fields Explained:

• videoId - YouTube video ID
• videoUrl - Full YouTube video URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...)
• transcript - Array of segments with text, start time, and duration
• textOnly - Clean, readable text with newlines between segments

Example Usage

Basic Usage (English transcript)

{
  "videoInput": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
}

Multiple Language Preferences

{
  "videoInput": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "languages": ["uk", "ru", "en"]
}

With All Options

{
  "videoInput": "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "languages": ["en", "es"],
  "preserveFormatting": true,
  "includeGeneratedTranscripts": true
}

Language Fallback

If the requested language is not available, the actor will:

1. Try each language in the languages array in order
2. If none are available, return any available transcript
3. Include a languageNote field explaining what happened

Memory Requirements

• Recommended: 128 MB
• Sufficient for most videos
• May need more for extremely long videos (3+ hours)

Proxy Configuration

The actor automatically uses Apify residential proxies to ensure reliable access to YouTube. A new proxy is used for each request.

Error Handling

The actor handles various error scenarios:

• Invalid URL/ID: Clear error message if the input cannot be parsed
• Video Unavailable: Detected and reported if the video doesn't exist or is private
• Transcripts Disabled: Reported if the video has transcripts disabled
• No Transcript Found: Reported if no transcripts are available in any language

All errors are saved to the dataset with error details for debugging.

🎯 Real-World Use Cases

1. Content Repurposing

Extract transcripts from your YouTube videos and automatically convert them into:

• Blog posts and articles
• Social media snippets
• Email newsletters
• Podcast show notes

2. SEO Optimization

• Add full transcripts to your website for better search engine indexing
• Create keyword-rich content from video material
• Improve accessibility with searchable text content

3. Research & Analysis

• Analyze thousands of videos for academic research
• Extract quotes and citations from educational content
• Build datasets for sentiment analysis or trend research

4. Translation & Localization

• Get source text for professional translation services
• Create multilingual subtitles for global audiences
• Compare auto-translated vs. manual transcripts

5. AI & Machine Learning

• Build training datasets from video content
• Create chatbots trained on specific video knowledge
• Generate summaries using AI models

6. Accessibility

• Create text versions of video content for hearing-impaired users
• Generate study materials from lecture videos
• Make video content searchable and indexable

💰 Pricing

Super cost-effective! Only 128 MB memory required per run.

• Average cost per video: $0.001 - $0.005
• Process 200-1000 videos for just $1
• No hidden fees or API key costs

Development

To run locally:

$apify run

To push to Apify platform:

$apify push

License

Apache 2.0